V
The most significant representatives of modern Hungarian music are Ödön Mihálovich, Count Géza Zichy, and Jenö Hubay. The compositions of these men should be considered first as works of absolute merit, regardless of their nationality; second, for the Hungarian national elements which they unconsciously display; and, finally, as noble, though not completely successful, attempts to apply these elements and characteristics to serious modern forms. Though much preoccupied with this problem, they cannot be criticized for the lack of strong individuality, since their personalities almost always overshadow the Hungarian qualities in their works, which, however, are still sufficiently prominent to typify them as Hungarian composers. Each of the three received his training under the most eminent foreign masters, by which fact they were peculiarly fitted to become the teachers of 'young Hungary,' and incidentally the real founders of the modern Hungarian school.
The oldest of the three, Mihálovich, was born in 1842. He studied with Hauptmann in Leipzig, with Bülow in Munich, and was in personal touch with Liszt and Wagner. In his position as the director of the Hungarian Royal National Academy of Music in Budapest he exercises a strong and salutary influence upon present Hungarian musical life. It is due to his efforts that this unique school maintains an extraordinarily high standard. As a composer he is versatile and prolific. He has successfully applied his talent to every form from song to grand opera ('Hagbart and Signe,' 'Toldi's Love,' 'Eliana,' and Wieland der Schmied, upon the libretto planned by Wagner). He has written a Symphony in D and several symphonic poems ('Sellö,' 'Pan's Death,' 'The Ship of Ghosts,' 'Hero and Leander,' Ronde du Sabbat, etc.). He is a master of orchestration and displays superior craftsmanship in working out his thematic material. His style shows a fusion of Wagnerian elements and of the principles of nineteenth-century program music with Hungarian national characteristics. His musical ideas are usually lofty and of refined taste.
Count Géza Zichy (born 1849) is an aristocrat in the best sense of the word. The qualities of the man of noble birth and high rank (he is a privy councillor to the king, a member of the House of Lords, the president of the National Music Conservatory, etc.), the fine sensibility of a man endowed with talent and trained under the best masters (he studied with and was a friend of Liszt and Volkmann) are reflected in his works as a poet, an author, a virtuoso, and a composer. A man of wealth, he employs his means in the realization of high artistic ideals. When as a lad of fourteen he lost his right arm he experienced the lesson of physical and spiritual suffering and grew up to be a man of unusually intense energy.[27] Instead of giving up his favorite art of piano playing he developed himself into the greatest of left-arm virtuosos. His remarkable playing, besides displaying an almost incredible technique, reflects the feelings of a truly poetic soul. 'His playing is remarkable in every respect, since it is gentle and full of soul, of enthusiasm, and of incomparable bravour,' wrote Fétis,[28] and Hanslick remarked 'there are many who can play, a few who can charm, but only Zichy can bewitch with his playing.' It is characteristic of him as a man and as an artist that he never accepts any fee for playing; he plays only for charity. 'I am happy,' he wrote to a critic, 'to be in the service of the poor and of the unfortunate and to earn bread for them through my hard work.'
Count Zichy's compositions for the piano—for the left hand alone (études, a sonata, a serenade, arrangements of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, etc.)—are unique in pianoforte literature. The climax of his achievement in this field is his Concerto in E-flat. It is distinguished by an energetic first movement, by a deeply felt second movement cast in a Hungarian folk-mood, by the brilliancy of the finale, and, above all, by its terrific technical demands upon the left hand.
Hungarian Composers:
Count Géza Zichy Jenö Hubay
Ernst von Dohnányi Emanuel Moór
In dramatic music Count Zichy began his activity with the opera Alár, upon a Hungarian subject. This was followed by the more successful 'Master Roland,' in which he makes use of a radically modern idiom. The work lacks the usual characteristics of Hungarian music. All his libretti were written by himself. Stimulated by Wagner's idea that 'through music dance and poetry are reconciled,' he undertook to write a poetic 'dance-poem' (ballet) or melodrama entitled Gemma. In this dramatic (speaking) actors played the chief rôles, while the action was supported by recitation, mimicry, dance and symphonic music. This novel undertaking proved a failure and Zichy later rewrote the whole piece as a regular pantomime.
The most ambitious work is his trilogy comprising Franz Rákoczy II, Nemo, and Rodosto, and dealing with the life of the historical Franz Rákoczy (1676-1735), 'the great hero and great character, the loyal, the most chivalrous, the noblest son of Hungary.' Zichy made a deep study of the Rákoczyan era and the librettos themselves as pure dramas are of considerable literary value. With respect to their historical truth the author remarked: 'After two years' study of this age the figure of the great hero became more and more vivid before my eyes and so I wrote the libretto of my trilogy—or rather I copied it, since the life of Rákoczy was itself induced by fate.'
Into the music of the trilogy there are woven numerous themes dating from the Rákoczyan period. The problem of applying the stylistic elements of national Hungarian music to modern forms, rhythms and harmony, however, proved a difficult one; Zichy's solution is a worthy attempt, but nevertheless only partially successful. Aside from this special purpose the work fascinates by its melodic warmth, its rhythmic energy, and its masterful workmanship. It is safe to say that Zichy's Rákoczy trilogy represents a new phase in the history of national Hungarian grand opera.
Of the three contemporary Hungarian composers Hubay's name is the best known internationally.[29] His career as a brilliant violinist (he frequently played with Liszt); the fact that he was Wieniawsky's and Vieuxtemps's successor at the Brussels Conservatory; the success of his quartet (with Servais as 'cellist), all helped to direct general attention to him. Both Massenet and Saint-Saëns were much interested in him. When as a young man of twenty-seven he was called home by the Hungarian government, his fame was already well established. Later he continued playing in the musical centres of Europe and added to his fame, and when he began to publish (and play) his violin compositions he achieved such a sweeping success that he is still popularly regarded as a composer of well-known violin pieces, to the detriment of the reputation of his other works.
This very attitude of the general public is the highest praise for Hubay's violin compositions. Indeed, their poetic charm, their effectiveness and singularly idiomatic style stamp him as a genuinely inspired poet of the instrument. In violin literature he occupies perhaps the most nearly analogous place to that of Chopin in piano music. His deeply-felt tone-pictures, his 'Csárda (tavern) Scenes,' in which he preserved many a treasure of Hungarian folk-song, those magnificent illustrations of Sirva vigad a magyar, those rapturous Hungarian rhapsodies for the violin, are surely not of less value than many of Liszt's finest piano compositions.
The facts that Hubay's name is chiefly associated with his standard violin compositions and that his reputation is mainly that of a great violin pedagogue were obstacles to the popularity of his other works. Yet his creative activity has been most varied: he has written songs, sonatas, concertos, symphonies, and seven operas. One of these operas, 'The Violin Maker of Cremona' (libretto by Coppée), was successfully performed in seventy European theatres. The music of the 'Violin Maker' is characterized by refined elegance, genuine passion, and the nobility of its ideas. The remark of a Hungarian critic that Hubay's music impresses one 'as if he had composed it with silk gloves on his hands' may be accepted as real praise, for Hubay's technical mastery is applied with uniformly exquisite taste. He especially shows his superior musicianship in the operas Alienor, 'Two Little Wooden Shoes,' 'A Night of Love,' 'Venus of Milo,' and in the two Hungarian operas, 'The Village Rover' and 'Lavotta's Love,' the first based on a Hungarian peasant play, the second on the life of the composer Lavotta.
Hubay's two essays in the field of national grand opera are sincere products of his artistic conviction—conscious manifestations of a national ambition; he can, therefore, not be accused of trying to hide a lack of original invention behind a cloak of folk-music.